* Penn State is technically "state-related" and not truly public, and as a result the school does not receive as much state funding as a typical public school (leading to higher tuition) and does not have to disclose as much information about its employees. You can read the details here.

** It's difficult to track down salary information for employees at Ole Miss and Mississippi State, but the highest non-coach salaries we could find top out at around $500,000. While we can't prove that nobody at these schools earns more than Dan Mullen's $2.65 million per year, we think it's very unlikely.

Did you guys read this? This is the profit business education system in U.S.. Very indicative of how things operate in the US, whether we're talking education or healthcare or whatever else. It's never about how to improve the country, it's all about how much money an owner can make. There was an article I read a while ago that said universities typically spend about 40% of money they get on students/teaching, and the rest goes to advertising or who knows wherever else... probably a nice sum goes right in someone's pocket.

WASHINGTON -- Low-income students are increasingly bypassed when colleges offer applicants financial aid, as schools compete for wealthier students who can afford rising tuition and fees, according to a public policy institute's analysis of U.S. Department of Education data.

The study by The New America Foundation said that colleges, in their quest to advance their U.S. News & World Report rankings, are directing more financial aid to high-achieving applicants in a bid to elevate the profile of their student population.

"A lot of them (colleges) go for the same students from the rich suburban schools," said Stephen Burd, the foundation's education policy analyst who studied the data.

Texas is a right to work state, so the union issue won't be the same as elsewhere.

But why would she be fired? Because a student is complaining about her? Maybe the kid is telling it like it is, but maybe not. We won't hear the teacher's side, because she won't be able to talk about it.

I don't think anyone said she should be, but point it she CAN'T be. Texas teachers still have tenure. Protection doesn't REQUIRE a union...

Well, APK mentioned that she wouldn't be fired, so that kind of insinuates that being fired should be considered.

And yes, a teacher with tenure CAN be fired. With cause. Having tenure makes it harder to do. Having union protection makes it much harder to do.

You're reading much too literally... she can't be fired for being the type of teacher that meets the BMQ.

This subjugates rational application of law and adds a penalty to fire a tenured teacher. The only winner is a lawyer in this situation; districts pay, teachers are in a situation they don't want to be in, and the kids have to bear the brunt.

We're saying basically the same thing. But I mean harder beyond the financial sense. You have to prove the reason to fire tenured teachers. Probationary teachers can be fired without cause. It falls on the districts to actually do something. It requires too much work and too much money. They'd rather just pawn the teacher off somewhere else. And as you say, it's the kids who get the raw end of the deal.

Tenure does have some positives though. It keeps districts from firing higher paid teachers as a way of cutting costs, no matter how effective they are. It would be great if a proper evaluation system were out in place. Won't happen anytime soon though.

Reason has some more numbers from that survey here. The majority of Americans who favor increased gun control are also under the mistaken impression that gun crime has increased. In addition, a 54% majority of registered Democrats mistakenly believe that gun crime has increased, while only 29% of Republicans and 25% of Independents are similarly misguided. Odd. I thought Democrats were the ones who claim to be in favor of science and stuff like that. In this case, they aren’t even properly aware of reality.

I've read that the suicide rate among the drone pilot cadre (active and vet) is the highest of any MOS in the military. The suicide rate in the USAF is the highest it has been in nearly two decades, and that's almost entirely due to drone operators.

Think about it; there's no emotional outlet for what they do. They spend their work days remotely murdering civilians (and let's not mince words here, that's what this program does), many if not most of whom have little to nothing to do with making war against the U.S. But they themselves are not exposed to enemy fire, nor do they have the unit esprit de corps of other fighting units because their missions are so intensely classified. Then at the end of the day, they go home to their families, have a nice warm dinner, help the kids with their math homework, and go to bed completely removed from the carnage they wrought just hours earlier.

MWB wrote:Texas is a right to work state, so the union issue won't be the same as elsewhere.

But why would she be fired? Because a student is complaining about her? Maybe the kid is telling it like it is, but maybe not. We won't hear the teacher's side, because she won't be able to talk about it.

I don't think anyone said she should be, but point it she CAN'T be. Texas teachers still have tenure. Protection doesn't REQUIRE a union...

Well, APK mentioned that she wouldn't be fired, so that kind of insinuates that being fired should be considered.

And yes, a teacher with tenure CAN be fired. With cause. Having tenure makes it harder to do. Having union protection makes it much harder to do.

You're reading much too literally... she can't be fired for being the type of teacher that meets the BMQ.

This subjugates rational application of law and adds a penalty to fire a tenured teacher. The only winner is a lawyer in this situation; districts pay, teachers are in a situation they don't want to be in, and the kids have to bear the brunt.

Tenure does have some positives though. It keeps districts from firing higher paid teachers as a way of cutting costs, no matter how effective they are. It would be great if a proper evaluation system were out in place. Won't happen anytime soon though.

Tenure practically guarantees what you say is great from ever happening.

A little further, no school that has the ability -- religious, charter, private, college, etc. -- arbitrarily fires teachers without a dire financial need, in which case districts are furloughing teachers or consolidating anyway... are those positives?

I've read that the suicide rate among the drone pilot cadre (active and vet) is the highest of any MOS in the military. The suicide rate in the USAF is the highest it has been in nearly two decades, and that's almost entirely due to drone operators.

Think about it; there's no emotional outlet for what they do. They spend their work days remotely murdering civilians (and let's not mince words here, that's what this program does), many if not most of whom have little to nothing to do with making war against the U.S. But they themselves are not exposed to enemy fire, nor do they have the unit esprit de corps of other fighting units because their missions are so intensely classified. Then at the end of the day, they go home to their families, have a nice warm dinner, help the kids with their math homework, and go to bed completely removed from the carnage they wrought just hours earlier.

How could that not totally eff with your head?

If the targets were only always guys shooting at our troops then I could do this with a crystal clear consience. But I don't like the idea of what seems like guilt by association here. It's also one thing to send an assassin to take out a terrorist. If you get the wrong guy it's not good but only one life is lost. If you blow upa whole building and have the wrong guy then a lot more innocents can die.

Pitt87 wrote:Tenure practically guarantees what you say is great from ever happening.

I guess I'm not being clear in my thoughts. I'm not saying I think tenure is a good thing. I think it does have it's place though, given the current setup. I would happily say eliminate tenure, but have something ready to replace it.

And tenure isn't the biggest roadblock to proper evaluations. Doing it would require more money. You need someone who's dedicated job it is to observe, conference with, and critique teachers. No district will do that unless they have to. Unions help prevent it. Tenure helps prevent it too, but the district is in charge of offering tenure. Evaluations are already happening, and tenure is starting to be eliminated. The problem is, the evaluations are useless.

Pitt87 wrote:A little further, no school that has the ability -- religious, charter, private, college, etc. -- arbitrarily fires teachers without a dire financial need, in which case districts are furloughing teachers or consolidating anyway... are those positives?

columbia wrote:The odd thing is that this will help to gin up the OMG GOVERNMENT machine, which will:

1.) accomplish almost nothing2.) make a few opportunists even more rich in the process

Blaming the victims.

Now, on a serious note:Let me be the first to say "OMG Big Government". I don't know how you can "Meh" this kind of government meddling and abuse. It was government actors using their power to sponsor acts which were meant to effect the outcome of an election (the just weren't using guys pretending to be plumbers this time)

Pitt87 wrote:A little further, no school that has the ability -- religious, charter, private, college, etc. -- arbitrarily fires teachers without a dire financial need, in which case districts are furloughing teachers or consolidating anyway... are those positives?

I'm not sure what you mean by this.

States approve district budgets. If you see teachers getting laid off, check the budget and pay attention to revenues. Whats unfortunate is that tenure and seniority rules usually means class sizes grow faster and budget shortfalls in many cases trigger mandatory borrowing and tax hikes for districts. Look up the many 'poison pill' scenarios in state budgets and you'll see what I'm talking about.

So the guy from the Heritage Foundation who said Obamacare would cost several gajillion dollars over the next century (or whatever it was) has 'resigned'. Turns out the man wrote a dissertation in 2009 which contained the following passage:

"No one knows whether Hispanics will ever reach IQ parity with whites, but the prediction that new Hispanic immigrants will have low-IQ children and grandchildren is difficult to argue against."

tifosi77 wrote:So the guy from the Heritage Foundation who said Obamacare would cost several gajillion dollars over the next century (or whatever it was) has 'resigned'. Turns out the man wrote a dissertation in 2009 which contained the following passage:

"No one knows whether Hispanics will ever reach IQ parity with whites, but the prediction that new Hispanic immigrants will have low-IQ children and grandchildren is difficult to argue against."

Pitt87 wrote:A little further, no school that has the ability -- religious, charter, private, college, etc. -- arbitrarily fires teachers without a dire financial need, in which case districts are furloughing teachers or consolidating anyway... are those positives?

I'm not sure what you mean by this.

States approve district budgets. If you see teachers getting laid off, check the budget and pay attention to revenues. Whats unfortunate is that tenure and seniority rules usually means class sizes grow faster and budget shortfalls in many cases trigger mandatory borrowing and tax hikes for districts. Look up the many 'poison pill' scenarios in state budgets and you'll see what I'm talking about.

Different states have different processes for their budgets, and it's not quite as straight forward as you're making it seem. Schools are funded by the state, locally, and federally, with each strand having certain earmarked money. But teacher positions can come from any of the three.

Yes, tenure and seniority can and do have bad consequences. I don't think just ending it would solve the problem though. You mention religious, charter, and private schools. They've got their own set of issues that don't have to do with tenure. What would you suggest to change it? I say get rid of pay by seniority and pay people strictly based on thorough observations. Make tenure harder to attain and don't make it so easy to keep, as it is now.

It wasn't an 'inane comment'.... his entire doctoral thesis is based on the position that immigrants are inherently lower in IQ than whites. I mean, hell, the thing is titled "IQ And Immigration Policy".

The abstract:

The statistical construct known as IQ can reliably estimate general mental ability, or intelligence. The average IQ of immigrants in the United States is substantially lower than that of the white native population, and the difference is likely to persist over several generations. The consequences are a lack of socioeconomic assimilation among low-IQ immigrant groups, more underclass behavior, less social trust, and an increase in the proportion of of unskilled workers in the American labor market. Selecting high-IQ immigrants would ameliorate these problems in the U.S., while at the same time benefiting smart potential immigrants who lack educational access in their home countries.

It's not a question of the if-A-then-B-then-C maths you set out. Many conservatives disavowed the Heritage report this guy co-authored, so I would actually say this is an indication that Heritage does not equal the GOP (see comments below). The question is more basic than that.... it's more of a WTF was Heritage thinking when they hired this guy and had him co-author their position paper opposing immigration reform.

The reason why I think that's an important topic is because it's clear that many influential Republicans believe think tanks like Heritage hold more sway over GOP policy than do elected lawmakers (evidenced by Jim DeMint's resignation from the Senate to head up Heritage). I don't think that's arguable, but YMMV. However, the backlash from within the party itself shows, I think, that the more libertarian arm of the GOP (i.e. the Tea Party) is losing some of the influence it has wielded since 2008. Personally, I think that's a good thing.

And one other thing of note; the three-person panel who reviewed and accepted Richwine's dissertation was chaired by George Borjas.... who is the guy I reference periodically as the person who determined that illegal immigration results in a net increase of wealth to the average American of ~1%.

It wasn't an 'inane comment'.... his entire doctoral thesis is based on the position that immigrants are inherently lower in IQ than whites. I mean, hell, the thing is titled "IQ And Immigration Policy".

The abstract:

The statistical construct known as IQ can reliably estimate general mental ability, or intelligence. The average IQ of immigrants in the United States is substantially lower than that of the white native population, and the difference is likely to persist over several generations. The consequences are a lack of socioeconomic assimilation among low-IQ immigrant groups, more underclass behavior, less social trust, and an increase in the proportion of of unskilled workers in the American labor market. Selecting high-IQ immigrants would ameliorate these problems in the U.S., while at the same time benefiting smart potential immigrants who lack educational access in their home countries.

It's not a question of the if-A-then-B-then-C maths you set out. Many conservatives disavowed the Heritage report this guy co-authored, so I would actually say this is an indication that Heritage does not equal the GOP (see comments below). The question is more basic than that.... it's more of a WTF was Heritage thinking when they hired this guy and had him co-author their position paper opposing immigration reform.

The reason why I think that's an important topic is because it's clear that many influential Republicans believe think tanks like Heritage hold more sway over GOP policy than do elected lawmakers (evidenced by Jim DeMint's resignation from the Senate to head up Heritage). I don't think that's arguable, but YMMV. However, the backlash from within the party itself shows, I think, that the more libertarian arm of the GOP (i.e. the Tea Party) is losing some of the influence it has wielded since 2008. Personally, I think that's a good thing.

And one other thing of note; the three-person panel who reviewed and accepted Richwine's dissertation was chaired by George Borjas.... who is the guy I reference periodically as the person who determined that illegal immigration results in a net increase of wealth to the average American of ~1%.

So let's see, the Heritage foundation holds more sway over the GOP policy than elected lawmakers, Jason Richwine is a white supremacist by virtue of his doctorial thesis, Richwine worked for three years at Heritage, therfore Heritage foundation is made up of a bunch of white supremacists, Therefore the GOP are all a bunch of white supremacists.

And Jason Richwine, heaven forbid, started out with the impression that all Hispanics were imbeciles and worked backward citing only those sources in his dissertation which supported his theory.

And in the three years he spent at Heritage (after being hired after his graduation from Harvard), he dictated entire organizations social policy and by extension, that of the GOP.

Dear god.

Is it also off-limits to say that Asian immigrants routinely outperform other ethnic groups (specifically including white Americans) using those same metrics?

Political correctness has made these fields of study off limits.

Personally, I don't agree with Richwine's assertion (even if true, I believe that an individuals economic contribution is shaped by factors other than simple intelligence tests. Work ethic, Stamina, Values, etc... ). But to try and extend one mans views (a non-elected official at that) as being representative of an entire party is... well... just inane.

(No personal offense to Tifosi, you have your views, and I respect your right to have them, I just vehemently disagree)

Apparently the IRS knew conservative groups were being targeted for audits as early as 2011. And possibly Jewish pro Israel groups as well.

Does anyone actually think, as Senator Collins asked, that this was just a couple of rogue employees?

The shades of Nixon these days are remarkable. Not to mention new information from the New Yorker that the White House completely misled, and continue to mislead, the American public on the Benghazi incident. Apparently it wasn't just a conservative conspiracy.

In no instance did I state Richwine is representative of the GOP, or because the Heritage Foundation published a wonky position paper the entire GOP are bunch white supremacists. Where you are intuiting that from what I wrote confuses the hell out of me.

What I said, in fact, was the sharp reaction to the revelation of his dissertation shows the exact opposite of those absurd logical leaps is happening; whatever sway libertarian think tanks may have held over the GOP on social policy issues like immigration is starting to dry up. To me, that's an encouraging development because I feel that most of the positions advocated by Heritage and the like vis à vis are staggeringly unrealistic.

In other words, this indicates there is a very distinct BREAK between think tanks and the GOP on this issue, not a correlative connection.

I have no idea whatsoever about the merits of his dissertation, nor have I looked into how he obtained the data which lead him to the conclusion that Hispanic immigrants are inherently more stupid than native white people. The only thing about the dissertation that I think is in any way constructive in connection to the data analysis he provided to the main author of the Heritage study is that it might indicate an inherent bias (which, of course, need not be racial) that might skew his analysis.

I've read that the suicide rate among the drone pilot cadre (active and vet) is the highest of any MOS in the military. The suicide rate in the USAF is the highest it has been in nearly two decades, and that's almost entirely due to drone operators.

Think about it; there's no emotional outlet for what they do. They spend their work days remotely murdering civilians (and let's not mince words here, that's what this program does), many if not most of whom have little to nothing to do with making war against the U.S. But they themselves are not exposed to enemy fire, nor do they have the unit esprit de corps of other fighting units because their missions are so intensely classified. Then at the end of the day, they go home to their families, have a nice warm dinner, help the kids with their math homework, and go to bed completely removed from the carnage they wrought just hours earlier.

How could that not totally eff with your head?

If the targets were only always guys shooting at our troops then I could do this with a crystal clear consience. But I don't like the idea of what seems like guilt by association here. It's also one thing to send an assassin to take out a terrorist. If you get the wrong guy it's not good but only one life is lost. If you blow upa whole building and have the wrong guy then a lot more innocents can die.

i'd say there are very few drone attacks that dont kill at least 1 person who's just in the wrong place minding their business.

Congress was not told tea party groups were being inappropriately targeted by the Internal Revenue Service, even after acting agency Chief Steven Miller had been briefed on the matter.

Miller was first informed on May, 3, 2012, that applications for tax-exempt status by tea party groups were inappropriately singled out for extra scrutiny, the IRS said Monday.

At least twice after the briefing, Miller wrote letters to members of Congress to explain the process of reviewing applications for tax-exempt status without disclosing that tea party groups had been targeted. On July 25, 2012, Miller testified before the House Ways and Means oversight subcommittee, but again did not mention the additional scrutiny — despite being asked about it.

But the president’s claim that he said “act of terrorism” is taking revisionist history too far, given that he repeatedly refused to commit to that phrase when asked directly by reporters in the weeks after the attack. He appears to have gone out of his way to avoid saying it was a terrorist attack, so he has little standing to make that claim now.

Indeed, the initial unedited talking points did not call it an act of terrorism. Instead of pretending the right words were uttered, it would be far better to acknowledge that he was echoing what the intelligence community believed at the time--and that the administration’s phrasing could have been clearer and more forthright from the start.

(And never mind the fact the talking points when through a staggering 11 revisions courtesy of the WH and State Department)

The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative's top executive called a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into how news organizations gather the news.

The records obtained by the Justice Department listed outgoing calls for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, for general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and for the main number for the AP in the House of Representatives press gallery, according to attorneys for the AP. It was not clear if the records also included incoming calls or the duration of the calls.

In all, the government seized the records for more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to AP and its journalists in April and May of 2012. The exact number of journalists who used the phone lines during that period is unknown, but more than 100 journalists work in the offices where phone records were targeted, on a wide array of stories about government and other matters.

This administration is unraveling at a staggering rate, and I'll be very curious to hear their justification for spying on the Associated Press for as long as they have. It's no longer shades of Nixon, it is Nixon. I think the kid gloves media treatment is long gone, so the next 3 1/2 years will be quite interesting.